


Home

by isyotm



Category: Lifeline (Video Game 2015)
Genre: Coffee Shops, First Meetings, Gen, Other, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5779087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyotm/pseuds/isyotm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few days after The End, you go out for a cup of coffee.</p>
<p>Contains spoilers for <i>Lifeline: Silent Night</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a reference to "Home" by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes.
> 
> Inspired by a post I saw on tumblr (which I can't find right now) and how I felt at the end of _Lifeline_ , a delightful game which is free right now (or at least at the time of posting this) on the iOS app store.

It’s like the plot of a movie you loved as a kid. The words to a favorite song. That inexorable pull towards a kindred spirit, someone who understands you almost better than you understand yourself.

The door opens and the bell chimes and something makes you look up, away from your coffee which is still too hot to drink and your phone which has been unusually silent for the past few days.

(Unusually but not unexpectedly silent. After all, the last person you talked to was fighting off parasitic aliens and zombie space marines and staring down the business end of a black hole.)

Something in the air has shifted, the way it feels after you catch a glimpse of someone you know out of the corner of your eye but before your brain has recognized them, the feeling of being watched by a pair of familiar eyes. You look up at the new arrival, but despite the feeling in your gut, you don’t know this person. Their gait, their face, their hair, their clothes—all of it is foreign to you.

You go back to staring at your phone and sipping at your coffee. The person at the counter who the back of your brain insists it recognizes is ordering their own drink. They say something to the cashier and follow it up with an awkward half-laugh while the cashier just smiles and nods with a look that says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

You suppress your own laugh. You’ve been on the receiving end of that look a few times yourself.

Your phone buzzes and you practically lunge for it, desperate for news, but it’s just a friend asking if you’re caught up on a TV show (not the friend with the aliens and the space marines and the black hole). You sigh and place your phone back on the counter. Don’t you remember anything from your middle school science class? A black hole might as well be a death sentence.

It’s time to accept your best friend is probably dead.

At least you were there with them. At the end.

“Taylor?” the barista calls and your hand clenches convulsively around your coffee cup, the cardboard creaking underneath your fingers. The only still-functioning part of your brain pipes up, informing that if you don’t let go soon, the structural integrity of the cup might collapse and then you’re going to be _wearing_ your drink.

You force yourself to relax. Taylor is a common name after all. You went to school with a couple of Taylors (none of them the one that you’ve been mourning for the past few days. You may not keep in touch with them, but you would know if someone you went to school became an astronaut. Or an astronaut’s assistant).

But you can’t shake the feeling and you can’t stop staring at them. _This_ is what the back of your brain has been trying to get you to notice, though what it picked up on you have no idea. Maybe the fading burn mark on their cheek  or the slightly haunted look in their eyes.

Their eyes.

They’re looking at you.

And suddenly, without a doubt, even though you’ve never seen them before in your _life_ , you recognize them.

It’s like that line in that book you got for your birthday:

_I could recognize them by touch alone, by smell; I would know them blind, by the way their breaths came and their feet struck the earth. I would know them in death, at the end of the world._

You feel like a pot boiling over, a jumble of emotions bubbling up inside you and spilling over, flooding your entire body from the top of your head to the tips of your fingers, your toes. Everything seems brighter, louder, sharper, the way it did the first time you put on your glasses after squinting at the world for a year.

You suddenly have the overwhelming urge to cry. You fight it. Instead, you force yourself to speak.

“Taylor?”

The word comes out hoarse and too quiet, but they pause. They must have seen your mouth move, forming their name, that one word that catches anyone’s attention no matter how softly it’s spoken.

You clear your throat and try again. “Taylor?”

They must see something in your face (you have no idea what expression you’re making right now, but it’s probably a little unnerving if the look on the face lady in the corner is anything to go by) because their eyes widen ever so slightly, their gaze flickering over you as if they can’t believe this is real, as if they know your next words before they’re even out of your mouth.

“It’s me.”

**Author's Note:**

> The quote is from _The Song of Achilles_ which I HIGHLY recommend. I finished it about two days after I got it and I'm trying to wait at least a few months before rereading it.
> 
> I chose second person for the reader because I feel like the _Lifeline_ experience is very personal and I wanted this to be as relatable as possible (I recognize that I failed in some respects--not everyone wears glasses or likes books or drinks coffee or can go days without their phone buzzing). I chose "they" pronouns for Taylor because their gender is never mentioned or even implied in the game and I like the idea of a non-binary and/or androgynous sci-fi protagonist.
> 
> As I mentioned above, this was inspired by another work and I would like to give that author credit. If you find the post (either on AO3 or tumblr), please let me know so I can link it. Thank you.


End file.
